


Precious moments

by towards_morning



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, M/M, Poetry, Recreational Drug Use, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-01-21 12:03:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21299153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towards_morning/pseuds/towards_morning
Summary: A flash-fic series of drabbles/etc from my twitter.*Brief things are often worth lingering on, not for their importance but for their impact.
Relationships: Brainstorm & Perceptor, Drift | Deadlock/Minimus Ambus, Drift | Deadlock/Rodimus, Drift | Deadlock/Rodimus/Ultra Magnus, Megatron & Rodimus, Megatron/Rodimus, Optimus Prime/Shockwave, Ratchet & Rodimus, Ratchet/Rodimus
Comments: 3
Kudos: 59





	1. Megatron/Rodimus - Poetry

**Author's Note:**

> This is a drabble for steelhearts_ on Twitter, who asked for "MegaRod" + Poetry.
> 
> Here we go with the warmups, friends..!
> 
> This first piece assumes early Lost Light dynamics, with no fixed/obvious timeline.

"Show me," said Rodimus, cocking his hip just so to make himself seem like someone not to be ignored. It was hard, he thought, being sensible in the face of an enemy- but he managed it. Even as Rodimus held back his desperate urge to stab through anyone and everyone.

Rodimus watched, unimpressed as Megatron self-consciously drew his own frame into a kind of semi-formal parade rest, not so much out of respect for Rodimus as an in-born wariness. "Show you what, exactly?" Megatron answered after the brief pause where he considered his co-captain while said colleague smiled, both smug and happy. The obvious answer was strategic. But Rodimus knew what, after all these months of Rodimus sulking and Megatron trying far too hard, would hit.

"Mags said you wrote poetry about m-"

"Under duress-" said Megatron, partly in self defense, and partly to absolve Minimus, who deserved precisely none of this.

He hadn't even read the poetry; rather, Megatron had mentioned it offhand while inadvisably drunk, at which point sensible Minimus had walked him to his berth. Such nonsense was under lock and key.

"-about us, and about me," continued Rodimus, as though not only uninterested but also unimpressed. He looked gleeful, but also hungry, which gave Megatron pause.

He remembered what it meant to care even a little about the desperate revolutionary he'd tried to recruit so, so long ago, Hot Rod- and he also remembered how it felt to be turned down by someone who he could never deny had always deserved better. Damn, Megatron thought. Damn, damn, damn.

"I tried," he said, holding Rodimus' gaze, "But I'm sure others have more to offer, Magnus included."

Megatron turned and walked. He had nothing less to offer, good or bad. When he heard Rodimus follow, he thought- how foolish. But still, he slowed his gait. So it went, he thought. He turned back around, and this time when Rodimus met his eyes, Megatron let a hand settle on his waist. To mirror the hand Rodimus had, at some point, placed on his shoulder. Of course.

It was warm, warmer than he deserved. Even so. Alright, then. Megatron slowly relaxed, even as he watched his partner sharpen. So it was. "What do you want?" asked Megatron, unsure himself. His partner only gripped tighter around the waist.

Rodimus relented. "Tell me what you wrote," he said, meeting Megatron's hard gaze. "Even where it's awful. I don't care. Tell me."

After a moment, Megatron spoke, and Rodimus watched as he listened, silent.


	2. Brainstorm & Perceptor - lab explosion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt was "Brainstorm & Perceptor - lab explosion".
> 
> I love these two dweebs.

Perceptor was, at this point, used to chaos. He stepped into the lab with a clear awareness of what to expect and that, in itself, was something he could not help but find some type of comfort in. Any kind of comfort in. Primus knew he needed it.

"Brainstorm," said Perceptor, less tired than he felt he should be, even as he watched Brainstorm cheerfully wrestle with the fire extinguisher. Against his will, he couldn't help but perk up as he watched Brainstorm work his way through the flames, excited all the way. Some things were just inescapable.

Perceptor had felt little but a kind of existential anxiety for so long that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't help but feel something warm as he watched Brainstorm douse the flames that, no doubt, were his own fault. Perceptor cleared his throat and continued. "What happened?"

"Oh, well, you know," deflected Brainstorm as Perceptor watched him douse the flames, flustered as he worked. "Y'know, I, uh, not gonna lie Percy, could do with some help here-"

A part of Perceptor leapt into action, ready and willing to find targets to lock on to and deal with. The other, smaller part held him back as he watched Brainstorm. Who was definitely doing stupid things, but who Perceptor understood well enough to know it had less to do with wanton destruction and more to do with resisting inertia.

So Perceptor watched as Brainstorm yelped while dousing the last of the flames, singing his plating. When his lab partner turned reproachful eyes to Perceptor at lack of help, Perceptor let himself smile, just a little. It had been a long time since he was able to watch potential disaster with anything less than paranoia.

"You seem to have it under control," he said, and pretended not to notice the way Brainstorm lit up.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wonderful Harper (@floralpunkcfb on Twitter) asked me for:
> 
> "ratchet/rodimus + overtired"
> 
> This is less overt shippiness and more early building of relationships, but Tension TM is timeless. LBR.

By the third time Rodimus ended up in the medbay, Ratchet was done.

He had agreed to this fools' chase less out of sincere belief and more because staying on Cybertron seemed stifling in the face of so much petty war. It had been a long, long time since Ratchet truly believed in any such thing as a cause- millenia of war had beat it out of him. So no matter his trepidation at Rodimus' so-called quest, he had decided, frag it, that was better than wasting away on a world with only memories to offer him. He was tired. Unwilling to pretend otherwise, this far into his life.

Rodimus made him question that wisdom. Philosophical nihilism be damned, the mech was just infuriating.

"You did what," Ratchet said flatly as he shoved a laughing Rodimus onto the medical berth. Energon oozed between his subtly shaking fingers as he prepared to weld his idiot captain into some kind of fighting shape.

Rodimus kept smiling even as his laughter quieted. "Look, what else do you want?" he asked, gasping as Ratchet pinched fuel lines together cruelly. He looked Ratchet dead in the optics as the welding torch lit, a dare that made Ratchet remember younger and more reckless times. "Better me than them, right?"

The honesty almost made Ratchet hesitate. He'd heard that so many times and from so many good mechs in the war, it was enough to make him hesitate over Rodimus, a mech trying so hard to be someone not worth respecting. When their eyes met, Rodimus slid his gaze away with a smile Ratchet forced himself not to relate to.

"Better noone, kid," he said after just slightly too long a pause. He physically stopped himself stroking that too-bright smile. And when Rodimus turned to meet his gaze, he couldn't help but hold it, thinking that yes, bravado aside, he had someone on this ship who remembered something of what it was like to pretend to have survived a war. One way or the other.

The blowtorch burned.


	4. Getting better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For deceptirod on Twitter: "Hmmm... fortmax + red alert. Getting better."
> 
> I'm still doing these, I promise. This one is post-Unicron; don't question it too much.

It had been a long time since the two of them shared space on the Lost Light all those years ago. In truth, their paths had barely crossed; too many people had crowded on before Red Alert had panicked, and Fort Max had never been all that good at socialising regardless of time. Now, on a new world, both alive and not sure what to do with that fact, they found each other.

Nobody really knew what to do on said new world. Too much had changed, so at least when Fort Max felt adrift, he knew it wasn't only him. A small comfort. Cold comfort.

"Close the door," snapped Red Alert, biting his lip. So much for a fresh start, thought Fortress Maximus, before he stopped himself from following that uncharitable train of thought any further. He shut the door, and let himself admit that yes, the privacy made him feel safer. It was not only Red Alert who worried.

When he turned back to look at Red Alert, he couldn't stop the instinctive step forward. "Are you-"

It had been some time since Fort Max had needed to make small talk in his self-conciously isolated role as enforcer. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Are you- alright?"

Red Alert met his gaze and no reassuring smile was forthcoming. Even so, Fort Max watched as the other steeled himself and held out a hand, shaking.

"Are you?" Red Alert asked, not meeting his eyes. The hand was a peace offering, given in desperation.

"No," replied Fort Max, even as he curled his hand around the offered digits. "We might be, though."


	5. Optimus/Shockwave - Shadowplay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is me very loosely interpreting "OP/Shockwave", Valentines Day, from @iaconcity on Twitter. Hey, they said I could do post-shadowplay.

Optimus had a cascading mess of comm frequencies. Inevitable after so many millenia of war, scrabbling to keep some kind of order in light of the yawning abyss that was the slow grind of their reality.

He was ruthless in how he organised them. A hundred desperate messages a day, and after millenia he had taught himself how not to give in to sentimentality. One day, he thought, that would be what he was remembered for; his greatest weakness. His inability to let in the kinder messages for fear of failure.

But his truly personal frequencies, those were ones he refused to give up. Rarely touched. Usually Ratchet telling him to get himself in line, or Ultra Magnus, whichever one was there over the years, pulling him back from an edge he did not understand he was ready to fall into. Voices cutting in to say _stop_.

And once a cycle, every cycle, something else.

Not an emotive statement. Not a plea. Not something else anyone else would ever have the privilege of hearing.

A simple data packet, sent on an anniversary only Optimus and one other would ever know existed. Data only. No sentiment and no fuss. It would be easy for Optimus to say the other wasn't capable of such indulgence anymore. But truth be told, neither was he after all these years. That kind of luxury was too much for any of them to justify.

Shockwave sent him one data packet a year on the day they had talked around the idea of conjunxing, mere days before the Institute reminded them it wasn't that simple for anyone no matter their status. A simple data packet, devoid of sentiment.

But he still sent it, every year they lived through the war. Optimus could not help but make it mean something.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from Kit (@unscheming on Twitter) for Minimus getting high with Drift.
> 
> It's a recurring Primacy AU in-joke and we both have magnus/drift brainworms, but by god I was determined to Make This Work, Sort Of, In Canon.

Minimus focused on the hand at his hip. Drift was circling gently, the movement soothing. A good counterpoint to the rest of his frame right now. It felt distant in a way that he wasn't at all used to, while the hand pressing in was firm.

"Hey," Drift said into Minimus' audial, low and buzzing. "You with me?"

"Mm," Minimus managed. The hand was warm and he leaned his weight into it. He felt his optics dim more than he instructed them to. Above him, he heard Drift inhale before a hand found his jaw and gently pushed it upwards.

"C'mere," he heard, and when he followed that hand up he felt Drift exhale against his half-open mouth, smoke curling where it escaped. When Minimus' optics flared back open and he inhaled reflexively, that sweet smoke followed. More than just the intoxication, Minimus had to fight back the disorienting sensation of letting in something that blurred edges. Once, he had kept an alert on his HUD for Drift, an alarm of sorts. Now he let that smoke in and told himself that he deserved more than an anxious knife edge.

That edge slowly dulled as Minimus inhaled. Drift kept cupping his cheek, eyes flitting, checking in.

"You with me?" he asked again, hand gentle. Minimus shuttered his optics and thought about just how long it had been since someone touched him without layers between them, and how complicated this quest had made his memories of that long war. He had fought Deadlock hand to hand, once. A terrible fight. Now he leaned into that warmth and tried harder than he ever had to let himself slip into something kinder than the constant whine of his worries. Drift stayed steady throughout.

"Yes," he said, leaning into the warmth. "I am."


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one was for @fhwomp on Twitter, asking for "driftrod- on fire".

Sparring had been different since Drift returned to the Lost Light.

They had always sparred, right back to when they had been two lost souls clinging to their places in the Wreckers. Both Drift and Hot Rod understood what it meant to feel that "living" and "fighting" were the same. And in turn they knew the importance of fighting dirty. It had been the great relief Drift felt, tackling Hot Rod all those years ago; they both understood what it meant to survive in the face of an uncaring war.

Things were harder on the Lost Light. Drift found himself stumbling in Rodimus' wake, unused to doing this for "fun". It had been a long time since he let himself do things without stakes. Sometimes he still woke with panic on his lips; panicking despite the formal peace. More than anything, Drift knew that this revealed the cracks in peacetime.

Still. When Drift watched Rodimus flash that sharp grin and light himself on fire, Drift couldn't bring himself to be a pessimist. Not when he watched someone so entitled to despair, someone who watched Nyon burn, flash that living grin at him, not needing to think to be someone whose fire burned bright. Those flames climbed higher, and they were irresistable. Drift passed a hand through them, warm and underappreciated.

His partners' grin only got wider when Drift drew his swords.

"You ready?" he asked, twirling them purely because he knew Rodimus would laugh at the display.

"You know it," Rodimus said, and Drift thought: _is anyone luckier_. When they met in the middle, Drift couldn't hope to hold back his delight.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For [Sami](https://twitter.com/SaltAtItsFinest)!
> 
> Prompt was for the LL playing a game, specifically Mario Kart... <3

Here was how it went:

Swerve was delighted to hear it wasn’t just him who wanted to play at game night. After all, the easy cop-out would always be that noone really wanted it, and everyone was just partaking in polite fiction, pretending they cared.

Instead, Magnus found himself finishing up his evening chaperoning mechs in Swerve’s bar, reluctant to leave it be for fear someone might be… irresponsible. And Swerve found himself between a rock and a hard place, that is, between an aggravated Ultra Magnus and an enthusiastic Rodimus.

“Yo,” Rodimus said, lounging in the small, cramped brig, which shoved all of them together, “-we’re going soon, right? Not to rush or anything, but we’re ready to go, yeah?”

“Captain,” Magnus started, hunched awkwardly in the corner even as he loomed. “Guidelines state-”

“OK,” Rodimus interrupted, “But I won, basically, and that means I basically shouldn’t be subject to-”

“Captain-” Magnus interrupted. He paused, not sure how to continue in a convincingly dignified manner.

“I did!” Rodimus said, and that was that: he was riled up, determined not to be the quote-unquote loser. “Ask Swerve, I totally did.”

Magnus visibly pulled himself together. On such a large mech, it was not a little intimidating. Swerve cleared his vocalizer and put on his biggest, most impressive smile.

“Hey,” Swerve said, smile firmly in place, trying hard to beat down the anxiety, “y’know, I get it, we’re all stressed-”

“Understatement,” Whirl said, crouched in a cell. He was a regular to the brig; Swerve ignored him.

“-but really,” Swerve continued, “-really, there’s no need to be overdramatic.”

There was a brief, blissful moment of silence. And then-

“Tell that to-”

“Look, it’s not my-”

Whirl and Rodimus spoke simultaneously, glaring at each other from opposite sides of the brig. They cut off around the same time, which was promising, except then they started up just the same as they had been. Tailgate had come with Whirl, was stood behind him, but had wisely decided to stay out of it. Even if he had won the last three Rainbow Road races, the little fragger.

Anyway, point was: Whirl and Rodimus had plenty to be overdramatic about, and so-

“You-”

“I’m-”

Magnus was not particularly inclined towards sympathy towards Swerve. It had taken rather a lot to not simply arrest the mech upon discovery of his less than legal bar on the Lost Light.

Even so, in light of this, Magnus couldn’t help but spare a desperate glance at him, the both of them used to how frustrating it was to deal with such things.

“Look,” Rodimus was saying, “I beat you fair and square, it’s not my fault you don’t know-”

“Fair!” Swerve said, “If we’re playing Earth games, I’m pretty sure glitching them out isn’t fair-”

“I didn’t do anything,” Rodimus insisted, “It’s not my fault they break-”

Magnus watched them arguing. Cyclonus had come to the bar, Tailgate on his hip as usual, and Swerve had looked tired, frankly. They were sweet, but Primus, could those bots dance around the obvious. So he hadn'tstarted out in the best mood .

Whirl cut in before Swerve could say anything more, and Magnus schooled his expression to not look overly grateful, all things considered.

“Hey mechs,” he said, “Wanna kick Rodimus’s aft at Mario Kart again when we're outta here?”

Swerve stared at Whirl’s claws as he clicked them together.

Ultra Magnus looked about ready to just give up.

Tailgate, on the other hand, looked delighted.

Frag it, Swerve thought, might as well.

“Sure,” he said, “Let’s do it.”

Magnus sighed.

It could be worse, he supposed.


End file.
